People dream of making the virtuous powerful, so they can depend upon them. Since they cannot do that, people choose to make… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
When the psychiatrist approves of a person's actions, he judges that person to have acted with "free choice"; when he disapproves,he judges… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
Aided and abetted by corrupt analysts, patients who have nothing better to do with their lives often use the psychoanalytic situation to… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
Had the white settlers in North America called the natives 'Americans' instead of 'Indians', the early Americans could not have said that… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
Traditionally, sex has been a very private, secretive activity. Herein perhaps lies its powerful force for uniting people in a strong bond.… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
Marx said that religion was the opiate of the people. In the United States today, opiates are the religion of the people. — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
The Nazis spoke of having a Jewish problem. We now speak of having a drug-abuse problem. Actually, "Jewish problem" was the name… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
Whenever masses of people, especially educated people, know something - and when what they know is something they greatly fear because they… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
When a man says that he is Jesus or Napoleon, or that the Martians are after him, or claims something else that… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
Mysticism joins and unites; reason divides and separates. People crave belonging more than understanding. Hence the prominent role of mysticism, and the… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
What people really need and demand from life is not wealth, comfort, or esteem, but games worth playing — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
Men often treat others worse than they treat themselves, but they rarely treat anyone better. It is the height of folly to… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
In the 60s people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
Institutional psychiatry is a continuation of the Inquisition. All that has really changed is the vocabulary and the social style. The vocabulary conforms to… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
By pretending that convention is Nature, that disobeying a personal prohibition is a medical illness, they establish themselves as agents of social control and… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
We shall therefore compare the concept of homosexuality as heresy, prevalent in the days of the witch-hunts, with the concept of homosexuality as mental… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
The basic ingredients of psychotherapy are religion, rhetoric, and repression, which are themselves mutually overlapping categories. — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
For Jews, the Messiah has never come; for Christians, He has come but once; for modern man, He appears and disappears with increasing rapidity.… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
I submit that the traditional definition of psychiatry, which is still vogue, places it alongside such things as alchemy and astrology, and commits it… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
I believe the time has come to acknowledge that the practice of routine circumcision rests on the absurd premise that the only mammal in… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
He who does not accept and respect those who want to reject life does not truly accept and respect life itself. — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
The passion to interpret as madness that with which we disagree seems to have infected the best of contemporary minds. — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
We should pledge ourselves to the proposition that the irresponsible life is not worth living. — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
A child becomes an adult when he realizes that he has a right not only to be right but also to be wrong. — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
We have, in our day, witnessed the birth of the Therapeutic State. This is perhaps the major implication of psychiatry as an institution of… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
